Recommended Reading

from Bruce

Lenore Skenazy: Scaring Does Not Mean Caring (Creators Syndicate)
Provocateur Joey Salads, a comedian who doesn't seem to care about sowing paranoia, keeps making videos about extremely rare and unlikely crimes to "teach parents a lesson." That lesson is inevitably: Your children will be snatched the second you take your eyes off them.

Froma Harrop: Freeing Predators to Bilk Little People Hurts Everyone (Creators Syndicate)
The most vivid takeaway from the financial meltdown of 10 years ago was that nearly everyone got hurt. Stock investors took a beating. People who had carefully set aside money for retirement saw a third of their savings vanish. Consumer spending collapsed, pushing two of the Big Three U.S. car companies to the edge of bankruptcy. Unemployment soared to 10 percent.

Susan Estrich: Leaking the List (Creators Syndicate)
My guess is some of the folks around Trump are afraid of what Mueller could do to this president in an interview controlled by the prosecutor. If their boss won't listen to them (and he often doesn't), and he won't listen to his lawyers (which is why he has to keep hiring new ones), then maybe he will listen to The New York Times, whose front page story focused on the breadth of the questions.

Connie Schultz: You, Too, Would Do This to Save the Life of Your Child (Creators Syndicate)
The New York Times' Caitlin Dickerson reported last month that "more than 700 children have been taken from adults claiming to be their parents since October, including more than 100 children under the age of 4." Say that out loud: more than 100 children under the age of 4. Think of them as your own, if that's the only way you can imagine the anguish of those innocent babies. This trauma will affect them for the rest of their lives.

Trivia Question of the Day

May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of what month in the Southern Hemisphere?

Trivia Question from Yesterday

Cat's cradle is one of the oldest games in recorded human history, and involves creating various string figures, either individually or by passing a loop of string back and forth between two or more players. The true origin of the name is debated, though the first known reference is in The light of nature pursued by Abraham Tucker in 1768. The type of string, the specific figures, their order, and the names of the figures vary. Independent versions of this game have been found in indigenous cultures throughout the world, including in Africa, Eastern Asia, the Pacific Islands, Australia, the Americas, and the Arctic

The game consists of two or more players making a sequence of string figures, each altering the figure made by the previous player. The game begins with one player making the eponymous figure Cat's Cradle (above). After each figure, the next player manipulates that figure and removes the string figure from the hands of the previous player with one of a few simple motions and tightens the loop to create another figure, for example, Diamonds. Diamonds might then lead to Candles, for example, and then Manger-an inverted Cat's Cradle-and so on. Most of the core figures allow a choice between two or more subsequent figures: for example, Fish in a Dish can become Cat's Eye or Manger. The game ends when a player makes a mistake or creates a dead-end figure, such as Two Crowns, which cannot be turned into anything else.

Billy in Cypress said:
Cat's cradle the game, which is also a great novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

Joe S responded:
I can think of only one game you can play with a string, Cat's Cradle.
I gotta tell ya, I'm glad "Kevin Can Wait" has been cancelled. It was two seasons too long. I started to watch the first episode but quit halfway through, that was all I could stand. 'King of Queens' would have been a good show too if only Kevin James was not on it.

from Marc Perkel

Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer

So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.

Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.

I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.

The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.

So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?

I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.

Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect

In The Chaos Household

Last Night

May Gray - marine layer hung around most of the day.

Tonight, Monday:

CBS opens the night with a RERUN'Big Bang Theory', followed by a FRESH'Man With A Plan', then a FRESH'Superior Donuts', followed by a RERUN'Big Bang Theory', then a FRESH'Elementary'.
Scheduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert are Anthony Anderson, Glenda Jackson, and Michael Pollan.
Scheduled on a FRESHJames Corden, OBE, are Zooey Deschanel, John Mulaney, and Arctic Monkeys.

NBC begins the night with a FRESH'The Voice', followed by a FRESH'Running Wild With Bear Grylls'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Nathan Lane, Yara Shahidi, and Kygo & Miguel.
Scheduled on a FRESHSeth Meyers are Milo Ventimiglia, Laurie Metcalf, Ashley Monroe, and Matt Byrne.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson 'The Scab' Daly are Omari Hardwick, Youngr, and Matilda Lutz.

ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Dancing With The Stars', followed by a FRESH'The Crossing'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 5/10/18) are Donald Glover, Molly Gordon, and Angelique Kidjo.

FX has the movie 'The Martian', followed by the movie 'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials'.

History has 'American Pickers', another 'American Pickers', followed by a FRESH'American Pickers', then a FRESH'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'Pawn Stars: Pumped Up'.

IFC -
[6:00AM] COMEDY CRIB: THE SHOW
[6:15AM] PORTLANDIA-You Do You
[6:45AM] THE THING
[9:15AM] ROGUE
[11:15AM] THE THING
[1:45PM] SALT
[4:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-I'd Like to Start With the Cat
[4:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-She'll Still Be Dead at Halftime
[5:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-The Ocu or the Pado?
[5:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-My Son's Enormous Head
[6:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-The Two Finger Rule
[6:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Hello, I Am Alan Cousteau
[7:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Above Exalted Cyclops
[7:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Sir Lancelot's Litter Box
[8:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Good Morning Mrs. Butterworth
[8:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Baseball Was Better With Steroids
[9:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-818-jklpuzo
[9:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Whipped Unto the Third Generation
[10:00PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Mmm, Fish. Yum
[10:30PM] TWO AND A HALF MEN-Laxative Tester, Horse Inseminator
[11:00PM] EVAN ALMIGHTY
[1:00AM] EVAN ALMIGHTY
[3:00AM] DEALIN' WITH IDIOTS
[5:00AM] PORTLANDIA-Peter Follows P!nk
[5:30AM] PORTLANDIA-Long Way Back (ALL TIMES EDT)

Meet Waffle House Hero

Parkland Survivors

Survivors of the Parkland school shooting met James Shaw Jr, the man who disarmed a gunman who killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House, in Miami on Saturday amid a drive for gun reform by student groups.

Seventeen people were killed and another 17 were injured in the Florida shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February.

"Meeting the young adults of the Parkland incident so much fire and inspiration in their eyes was a great joy," Mr Shaw tweetedwith a photo of the group.

Mr Shaw also posted a photo of himself with Emma Gonzalez, one of the leaders of the Parkland students' drive for gun reform, who helped to organise the March for Our Lives in Washington in March.

"I met one of my heroes today," Mr Shaw tweeted along with a photo of the beaming Ms Gonzalez.

Female Stars Protest

Cannes

Hollywood stars including Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart and Salma Hayek called Saturday for equal pay in the cinema industry and beyond in a historic red carpet protest at the Cannes film festival.

Eighty-two actresses, filmmakers and producers marched arm and arm to demand equality and "a safe workplace", seven months after the world was shaken by the #MeToo movement and the fall of mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The ranks included a battalion of Oscar winners from Helen Mirren and Marion Cotillard to US blockbuster directors Ava DuVernay and Patty Jenkins who made "Wonder Woman".

With Cannes under fire for its dearth of women directors, the world's top film festival hoped to fend off some of the fierce criticism with the march.

The number of protesters was highly symbolic as it represented the 82 films by female directors who have competed for the top Palme d'Or prize since 1946 -- a number dwarfed by the nearly 1,700 male contenders.

Program To Track Greenhouse Gas Is Canceled

NASA

A NASA program that cost $10 million per year to track carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, has been cancelled, a US space agency spokesman said Thursday.

The end of the program -- called the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) -- which tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon -- was first reported by the journal Science.

"Now, President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Corrupt) administration has quietly killed the CMS," the report said, describing the move as the latest in a "broad attack on climate science" mounted by the White House.

The journal said NASA "declined to provide a reason for the cancellation beyond 'budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget.'"

It also quoted US space agency spokesman Steve Cole as saying there was no mention of the CMS in a budget deal signed in March, which "allowed the administration's move to take effect."

Barely Targeted Swing States

Facebook Ads

Did Russians target the key swing states with their social media advertising push, and did they have any helpfrom the Trump campaign? The question has troubled Washington for months. But a review of Facebook advertisements from Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election now shows that they barely targeted the states that would decide the presidency.

The striking revelation is the result of a review by Democrats on the House intelligence committee who looked at Facebook advertisements from July 2015 to November 2016 by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company that operates online propaganda for the Putin government and others. The ad releaseincludes previously undisclosed targeting information, including demographic groups and location.

It shows that fewer than 300 of the 3,000-plus Facebook advertisements purchased by the Russian "troll factory" targeted states that could determine the outcome of the 2016 election. Even fewer of these social media ads mentioned the election or the presidential candidates.

The vast majority of the 277 swing state ads purchased by the Russian agency were about non-electoral issues, including police violence, racism, LGBTQ rights, immigration and Islamophobia. Many of them centered on themes of the Black Lives Matter movement. They mixed calls for protest with denunciations of police misconduct and systemic racism with praise for black celebrities and the black experience. Aside from the inability to conform to the rules of any known North American English dialect, they were mostly indistinguishable from social media posts by actual activists. In fact, many of the ads were incredibly banal.

Only a handful of ads in swing states made direct electoral appeals. Several of them originated in Being Patriotic, a Facebook group created by the Russian trolls that promoted pro-Trump rallies in Pennsylvania and Florida in the final months of the campaign. "We could help Mr. Trump win Pennsylvania which is a battleground state," one read. "We announce a patriotic flash mob in Florida on August, 2016. We either win Florida or lose. Florida Goes Trump," another read. The Florida ad, which reached 59,000 impressions, depicted Trump giving two thumbs up over a faked image of Hillary Clinton behind bars.

Fallin says the law does not restrict LGBTQ couples from adopting. While that may be technically true, it would allow agencies to reject couples "in accordance with their beliefs" ? that is, because those couples are in the LGBTQ community.

"Rather than stand up to religious fanaticism, the governor has chosen to reinforce the delusions of those who confuse discrimination with liberty," Oklahoma ACLU external affairs director Allie Shinn said. "This measure serves no legitimate policy purpose."

Two state equal rights groups, Freedom Oklahoma and Oklahomans For Equality, said they are looking into or will take legal action.

Ex-Yugoslav Strongman

Tito

Years of dust has been wiped off, the engine replaced, the chassis once again gleams a dark blue and the wheel rims sparkle -- one of ex-Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz Tito's luxury cars has been given a new lease of life in Serbia.

The car in question -- a 1948 Packard, a high-priced luxury American automobile owned by Tito before his death -- has been lovingly restored by Serbian folk singer and car-enthusiast Milos Bojanic

The 67-year-old has spent the past three years scraping together spare parts to rebuild the classic vehicle at his workshop in Novi Sad, northern Serbia.

The car was for years stationed in Macedonia -- one of the six republics that made up the former federation of Yugoslavia -- and later brought to Serbia by a businessman to be rented out as a wedding vehicle.

Only around 30 of some 1,000 luxury cars made by the US car producer remain functional, according to Bojanic, and now this newly restored Packard will soon be able to drive along the roads of former Yugoslavia, 70 years after it was first built.

Sells For £87,000

Battered Vase

A battered vase which was on its way to a charity shop has sold at auction for close to £90,000.

Grandmother Anne Beck always considered the chipped old china vase too damaged to display in her Eastbourne home. She inherited the foot-tall oriental decoration from her grandfather, an antique restorer, but neither he nor she ever repaired it, and Mrs Beck, 83, kept it in her garage for 11 years.

An expert at the Eastbourne Auctions house, in East Sussex, convinced her to add it to last week's sale. It was advertised online with an estimated sale price of between £90 and £120.

But knowledgeable bidders spotted the true value of the item and drove the price up to £70,000. Including fees the German-based Chinese buyer paid £87,000 for the vase.

Had it been undamaged experts estimate it might have been worth between £250m and £500m.

Weekend Box Office

"Avengers: Infinity War"

"Avengers: Infinity War" is still ruling the box office in its third weekend in theaters, easily beating out the mom-themed fare.

The Walt Disney Studios on Sunday estimates that "Infinity War" has added $61.8 million from North American theaters bringing its total domestic earnings to $547.8 million. Globally the film has now grossed over $1.6 billion- $200 million of which was from its massive opening in China this weekend. It's now the fifth highest grossing film of all time worldwide.

In a distant second, "Life of the Party" earned an estimated $18.5 million, which is a few million short of some of McCarthy's other comedy collaborations with husband Ben Falcone like "Tammy" and "The Boss." It also got similarly mixed reviews from critics. The Warner Bros. release stars McCarthy as a woman who decides to go back to college with her daughter.

The modestly budgeted "Breaking In" took third place with $16.5 million, over-performing most industry expectations despite lackluster reviews. The film stars Union as a mom who has to fight to save her kids from a group of home invaders.

Also benefiting from the Mother's Day timing was "Overboard," which earned $10.1 million to take fourth place, down only 31 percent from its debut last weekend. And rounding out the top five was "A Quiet Place" with $6.4 million. The John Krasinski-directed thriller has now earned $169.6 million domestically.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

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